George Percy Badger

“ Deliver Thy servants, Thou merciful One, and accept at their hands this oblation.
O Thou compassionate One, have mercy upon us at this time, and accept from us this service. Hear our prayers and supplications, O Thou heavenly One, hasten to our help, and save our life from death, we sinners who have strayed, O Thou Blessed; we wicked and perverse, O Thou Strong One; we adulterers and liars, O Thou Upholder; we fornicators and plunderers, O Thou Helper; we sinners and blind, O Thou who dost give light; we vile and proud, O Thou pitiful One ”

“ We pitched our tent on the mound, and listened to the wild songs of a party of soldiers, who were bivouacked in the plain, and who had escorted Shereef Pasha thus far from the town of Mardeen. It was quite cheering to meet again with human habitations, and to behold fields smiling with abundance of wheat and barley, nay, the very blocks of basaltic rock scattered about in this vicinity, were a relief to the monotonous sameness of the desert, notwithstanding its freedom and the sweet perfume of its many-coloured flowers. ”

“ The multitude of my sins had driven me to the brink of despair, and I was bereft of all consolation; but I called to mind and remembered Him who promised when He said, 'Ask and pray of Him who giveth freely, for He can heal every secret disease.' Therefore, with a broken spirit I beseech Thee, who only art the lover of mankind, to have mercy upon me. ”

“ If our creation is hateful, the fault is the Creator's; but if our free-will is evil, we alone are reprovable. If we have no freedom, why is our will accountable? If we have no freedom, the will is unjustly condemned; but if there be freedom, the will is justly made accountable. Accountability is the inseparable companion of freedom, and the law is bound up with the two. Freedom is accountable for this reason, because it has transgressed the limits fixed by the Lawgiver. What profit is it to the Creator, who is the Truth, to lie unto us by giving us the law without giving us freedom? ”

“ For all these Thy benefits we thank Thee, God the Father of truth, and Thy Only-Begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and Thy living Spirit the Holy Ghost, and we worship Thee also for all Thy benefits towards us, such as are known to us and such as we do not know, both hidden and open. And we also thank Thee for this service, and beseech Thee to accept it at our hands. Who can utter Thy wondrous power, or declare all Thy praise? for even if all created beings should join in one mouth and in one tongue they could not publish Thy greatness. ”

“ O Lord, the High, the Excellent, the Compassionate, who sittest on the ship of the clouds, at whose voice the dead shall rise up in the twinkling of an eye,—accept, we pray Thee, this service of Thy servants, and save them from death, give them the reward of heavenly happiness, deliver them from destruction, and from the envious and unpitying, O Christ, who art the hope of all who put their trust in Thee. ”

“ Then thou shalt call out, as did the Rich Man, from the midst of hell, 'O moisten my tongue which is parched with the flames.' And Abraham shall answer thee as he did the Rich Man, 'Remember that thou hast received thy good things, and Lazarus has received his afflictions, and now thou shalt have thine afflictions, and Lazarus shall have his good things.' Since thou didst not comfort the weary, therefore thou shalt not rest in the treasure-house of life. Since thou didst not satisfy a hungry soul, thou shalt not enjoy the blessings to come. ”

“ Ten thousand times ten thousand glories uttered by the Church, and never-ending springs of the pouring forth of the Spirit, flow towards the dust, unto Thee, Thou Ray of the Mysterious Orb, the Everlasting, the Son of the essence of Self-existence, Who from virginity took a garment of humanity, and hid therewith the effulgence of His Divinity! ”

“ Behold Adam, the begetter of nations, is begotten again, and the Creator of men has become a little child! He [the first Adam] who would have arrogated to himself the sovereignty unreasonably, took it [in Christ] when He was born an infant. Hail to thee, daughter, whose Son caused fatherhood to exist! Hail to Thee, Infant, Who filledst the womb of Thy mother with grace! Hail, Mary, who honouredest in thy bosom a united Man filled with purity, the reasonable temple of the Divinity! ”

“ O Christ, the Peace of those above, and the great safety of those below, let Thy peace and safety, O Lord, rest upon the four corners of the earth, and especially upon Thy holy Catholic Church. Make Thy priests and kings to dwell in unity, cause violence to cease in all the world, scatter the nations that delight in war, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. ”

“ Blessed art thou, O Church, for behold the commemoration of thy sanctification has been celebrated: for the Father has had pleasure in thy sons and daughters, and the Son has renewed thy foundations, and the Holy Ghost the Comforter has descended and sanctified thee by His grace, and set up within thee priests to preach the true faith, and has delivered unto thee His sacraments as a pledge of the forgiveness of thy children. ”

“ O Thou living and everlasting One, by Whose decree all creatures were created, visible and invisible, our Almighty God, Who fillest the heavens and the earth, the merciful and the compassionate One, Who carest for our species, and renewest our frame, Who feedest us with good things, ... Who art long-suffering, great in Thy power, just in Thy wisdom. ”

“ O thou holy Virgin, through whom our race corrupted by the deceitfulness of sin was sanctified, pray with us to thy Sanctifier to sanctify us, and that through the shadow of thy prayers He may preserve our life, spread out the wings of His pity over our frailty, and deliver us from evil. O mother of Him Who causes us to live, thou handmaid of our Creator, be to us a wall of refuge at all times. ”

“ If Thy word doth not loosen its power, the will of Thy people to love Thee will be lost altogether. With strong crying and tears we beseech Thee to save us from the hand of the Evil one, for our nature cannot overcome his wickedness, even as Thou Thyself hast taught us in Thy Gospel saying: 'Without Me ye can do no good thing.' Save us, therefore, from the Evil one, and destroy his dominion. ”

“ He is the very One Who makes all visible creatures to subsist, Who tries and judges them. Before the Union these offices belonged to the Person of the Divinity; afterwards it was given to the Person of the Humanity. And since all these things are fulfilled in this Begotten One, He is therefore Man and Lord most truly, certainly, and beyond all doubt. Let our abject race, therefore, rejoice, exult, and leap for joy, since the King of the highest and of the deep came down in order to raise it from its fall, and through Him the pure in heart see God. ”

“ Let us rejoice and sing praises, let us be merry and joyful, because the King is born at Ephratha, and has received the adoration of sovereigns through their gifts. Let the priests who surround the altar clap their hands, and let the Church dance for joy, since He is born Who will instantly destroy all those that hate her. Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, because the Lord has been sent to create peace above and below, and to make all one. Henceforth the Leader of the weak, Who has been exalted, shall abolish death ”

“ I passed several hours in conversation with Mar Shimoon, and inquired narrowly into the condition of his people under their new rulers. I may not reveal all he said, but of this I am convinced that Turkish domination will be a curse, and a heavy curse too, to the Christian mountaineers; and my sincere prayer is that God, in His mercy, will soon break the staff of Mohammedan tyranny and oppression, and free the Nestorians from its baneful slavery. "So let Thine enemies perish, O Lord; but let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." ”

“ We now approach in the true faith of Thy name, O Lord, and through Thy compassion we break, and through Thy mercy we sign, the Body and Blood of our Quickener, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Now the great foundation of Christianity is the confession that through the Cross renewal and universal salvation were obtained for all, and that Cross which we use is the same sign of our Lord as is to appear in the heavens before His coming, as He Himself has foretold. When, therefore, we look upon this emblem of our salvation, we conceive as though we were beholding our Saviour outstretched upon it for the remission of our sins, and for the renewal of all creation. Hence we offer a fervent and eucharistic worship, not to the fashioned matter of the Cross ”

“ The prey of adverse circumstances, and subjected to wicked and unchristian rulers, they owe their existence as a community professing Christianity through centuries of ever-increasing ignorance, not to the force of conviction arising out of a well-grounded knowledge of the faith as handed down to them by tradition; but, under God, to the power of human prejudice, and to the influence of those ceremonial and ritual observances, whereby they continued to celebrate the most glorious mysteries, and to practise the outward show, at least, of the most exalted virtues of the Christian religion. ”

“ O Thou Who hast blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places through Christ Jesus our Lord, Who hath called us unto His kingdom and glory, and hath advanced us to those desirable blessings which pass not away, and which never fade, even as He promised to His disciples, saying: Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever eateth My body, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me and I in him, and I will raise him up at the last day, and he shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto eternal life ”

“ I have read the mysteries and visions of Ezekiel; but I have not humbled my soul under the chariot of the law of the Lord God of Sabaoth. I have read the account of Daniel, and his interpretation of dreams; but I have not ceased from my brutishness, and have hated confidence and peace. I have read of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael; but the vile and hidden fire of lust in my members has not been cooled. ”

“ If it is right to believe that there is but one nature and one Person in Christ after the union, either the human nature and person are destroyed through the union;—here is destruction, not salvation. Or, the Divine Nature and Person are destroyed;—a monstrous profanity. Or, the two natures and two persons were mingled and confounded together;—behold hence a corruption! neither divinity nor humanity any longer existing. ”

“ Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, Thou that dwellest in the heavens, even as the eyes of a servant do look unto his master, that Thou mayest have mercy upon me in that great day when Thou shalt appear in Thy glory. ”

“ Ten hours to the south of Mosul, at a place called Hamman Ali, is another copious bituminous spring, the water of which is so hot that many faint on first stepping into it. A tolerably commodious building covers the spring, whither resort all kinds of impotent folk, who frequently come a distance of ten or even twenty days' journey to test its virtues. ”

“ In less than an hour we left the Zab, and commenced the toilsome ascent of the precipice before us. Arrived at the summit, a spectacle of imposing grandeur burst upon our view. Behind us through the gorge of the Zab, we saw the village of Leezan, smiling in all the freshness of spring; beneath us a deep valley clothed with forest wood; and all around mountains upon mountains reared their towering and snowy heads, seeming to claim kindred with the sky. ”